A promenade picture of the Westhead family on Waterloo Road, dating from 1940–1945
A householder whose home was nearly destroyed by a plane and saucy capers at notorious guesthouses are among the stories in a new project uncovering some of the myths and legends behind Blackpool’s colourful past.
A member of the depot team polishes a tram
Bloomfield Talks, a year-long oral history campaign commissioned by Blackpool Council, has seen international artists work with a team of local volunteers to collect hundreds of exchanges with residents through recordings, photography, cinematography and drawing.
A member of Revoe Dream Scheme Youth Club shows off his description of his mobile phone, which he listed as his favourite object in the survey of local residents
Wide-ranging discussions take in clubbing memories from the 1960s and 1970s, violence at the town’s famous Winter Garden and how political change has swept the region.
Simon Grennan's Map of Bloomfield drawing
Simon Grennan, of organising artist team Grennan & Sperandio, said: “Bloomfield Talks is a people’s history project with a couple of real twists.
“First, the people collecting records and memories of this part of Blackpool are people who already have strong associations with the area – five of the nine team members were born and bred there and a couple have worked at the area's major businesses.
Frank Murray's plan of the local rugby club
“Second, Bloomfield Talks takes a pretty broad view of what’s historically important, so some of the material that’s been collected and produced is about what happened yesterday as well as about what happened five, ten or 60 years ago.
A map of Bloomfield drawn by one anonymous local 55-year-old resident
“We’ve also taken a broad view of media, so the project constitutes a really wide range of stuff, from hand-written scraps of paper through the more traditional audio recordings and photographs, to a specially-made flight simulation and internet broadcast.”
Gravy Drawing by Vikki Hughes
The material has been unveiled online, and a free accompanying book will be given to 5,000 households in the area as part of the project, which has received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England.
Visit the archive at http://www.bloomfieldtalks.org
